Pastoral interlude, with sheep.

Though I haven't yet gotten to the portion of our travels with my brother, Herb, and his partner, Judy, I find I need to jump ahead, beyond their visit, for a small tale of local wonder.

While they were here, Herb and Judy stayed in a near-by agritourism farm. Their first morning they discovered a narrow road that led them from the farm to the road leading to our apartment. Mike and I set out on Wednesday to explore it.

The road, with an ancient farmhouse. The photo is tilted, not the building.

It was an amazing fall day, with sunshine, pale blue sky and soft, cool breezes. We passed the farm and were heading further when suddenly we became aware of new and increasing animal sounds. We turned, and there on the hillside behind the farm, where formerly there had been only tall grass and clover, were now hundreds of sheep, goats, and donkeys.

We watched them fan out across the hillside, and decided to head back and investigate. Once there, we stood and took it all in. The entire flock had arrived just after we had passed the farm, and the fact that they had been right behind us was surprising, given their numbers. We hadn't heard them sneak up on us at all.

There were four shepherds with three dogs monitoring the perimeters, as there were no fences. One shepherd at the top of the hill called down to those below, and one of them went over to a donkey wearing a set of panniers, opened the compartments, and pulled out three newborn lambs! He slung each from his hands by their back feet, with scrawny heads, floppy ears (look at the photos - these sheep not only have floppy ears, they retain their tails. Funny looking.), and skinny legs hanging downward, bleating all the way. Then he made his way through the flock, finding ewes with freshly spray-painted backsides that indicated that they had just lambed, and plopped the little fellows down in front of the appropriate mommas. These babies were so tiny that they must have been dropped just that day, possibly mid- forced march.

Shepherds, with dog.

These guys did not have any more English skills than we had Italian, unfortunately. But a school kid showed up to watch, and we managed to put together this with his assistance: The sheep live on Monte Grappa most of the year. As a cold front was approaching, it was time to leave the mountain and head to lower pastures. So, what these guys do, apparently, is to drive the 700 sheep (plus 40 'piccoli' [little ones]-and counting!) from field to field, grazing them down, leaving their dung as exchange, going the distance to Venice along the Piave River, then turning around and returning come February. Whether they sell some off at Venice is unknown. 

Mike returned the next morning with an interested neighbor and learned more. The sheep had been sequestered for the night by a portable heavy plastic fence, and pretty much stripped the fenced area bare. A neighboring farm woman came by and asked them to have the sheep graze a section of her property, but then proceeded to delineate just where and where not the sheep were to go. Mike imagined that these guys who spent most of their time answering to precious few others would probably get tired of micro managers rather quickly. At any rate, her plot got a cursory grazing and the flock moved on. This was all big excitement for us here, and I knew you'd want to share in the thrill.

One of the newborns and its momma get some respite in the back of the specially-outfitted station wagon.

Mike made friends with one of the working dogs. He has a knack. But see how the dog doesn't really allow himself to disengage from his task. You may also notice that Mike looks cold - this was the day before the snow came.

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